New Blog Series: World Congress on Endometriosis - an Introduction - By Danielle Perro - DPhil Student studying endometriosis-associated pain at the University of Oxford
As March 1st rings in Endometriosis Awareness Month, endometriosis researchers around the world are looking forward to next week with anticipation. March 6th-10th is the World Congress on Endometriosis (WCE), a triennial international conference showcasing the most cutting-edge research on the condition, its causes and symptoms. As a third year DPhil student at the University of Oxford studying endometriosis-associated pain myself, I’ve been counting down the days until this conference since I first started my degree some years ago.
On Twitter and other social media platforms, it has been encouraging seeing the many people with endometriosis, researchers and specialists raising awareness of the condition through events and conversation. When reading the descriptions of these events, and learning more about the lived realities of people living with endometriosis, the urgency to better understand the condition becomes so clear. We need to better understand what causes endometriosis, so as to reduce the average 7.5-year diagnostic delay. We need to better understand what causes the symptoms, such as pain and infertility, so that more personalised and effective treatments can be developed. This is why I’m looking forward to WCE. It gives me so much hope knowing that while we all make a collective effort to raise awareness during the month of March, there is research going on behind the scenes year-round to better understand endometriosis.
Over the next week, I will be covering key topics and recent findings in the field of endometriosis research. Specifically, I will cover key topics in fertility, pain (where I will also present my own research) and the causes of endometriosis. I’m looking forward to hearing about the work that prominent and junior researchers are focused on, and seeing the direct impact that their work will have on people living with endometriosis. Follow along on the Endometriosis UK blog, and for live coverage, my twitter account @dperro_wrh. More information about the congress can be found here.
